On Two Feet
by The Jedi Wizard Hobbit
Summary: Written for a challenge. Set preseries, so no real spoilers. Zoe remembers how everything began with Wash and how she learned that they fit.


A/N: Writen for the livejournal Two Of Us Fic Challenge. You had to build your story on lyrics that you were given from a Beatles song. Mine were:

From "She's Leaving Home", off the Sgt. Pepper Album: _Silently closing her bedroom door/Leaving the note that she hoped would say more_

**On Two Feet**

There were some days when Zoe thought that the 'verse had invented Wash just for her.

War did things to people. Lots of things. It made you see things you never thought you'd see, things you thought people made up to scare tourists on shithole planets. It made you watch as friends and families stopped trusting each other, as children separated from their parents to fight for something they were almost sure they believed in. It moved you up in rank soon as you'd seen your first battle because men were scarce and there was no one on your side of the field who could think under pressure 'cept you.

Sometimes Zoe wished she didn't think so well under pressure.

Being Mal's first mate was good for her. Was hard, but left her in a position she liked just fine. A position where she could do something without feeling choked, without the need to _cover the men, close up the ranks, keep your nose to the dirt_.

Still, she hadn't really known what her life was supposed to be there. She hadn't felt like this was exactly where she had to be, more that this was the place carved out for her because of the many decisions she'd made leading up to it. She hadn't known why she needed to be a part of this little family, much as she respected the Captain and thought that Kaylee was a damn sweet girl.

She hadn't know until Wash had asked her on their first date.

She'd said yes because she'd thought it would be amusing to see him fall on his face. He was a strange one, no doubt about that. Plastic dinosaurs, funny shirts, jokes whenever he got nervous. Well, at least he'd gotten rid of that funny line of hair above his lip. Zoe hated a man with facial hair. She probably wouldn't have followed Mal if he'd had it. Gave her the spine crawlers.

Their first date had been bumbling and awkward and horribly planned and too damned perfect for words. He'd taken her to a restaurant that was too expensive and the food was terrible, but it was worth it to see him make fun of the fancy waiter who kept sneering at them through the evening. He kept trying to touch her, and his first attempt hadn't worked out so well, as he'd swatted her ass, and she'd given him a look that had clearly frightened him because he hadn't talked much after that. And then there had been a strange little show going on in the town square, and before Zoe could protest at how much she hated theater things, he had done something that had assured her attendance.

He had grabbed hold of her hand and gently tugged her along.

Zoe hadn't really known which way was up after that. Nobody ever held her hand for nothing.

No one took care of Zoe and just let her along for the ride. She had to stand on her own two feet.

The show was also terrible, but Wash's running commentary about the sexual preferences of the marionettes on stage had kept it wonderfully entertaining. And from how he side-glanced her every time she laughed, she could tell that he was trying so hard to get her to like him. So hard it hurt to know it.

But the show was still bad and it's musical accompaniment was worse. So naturally, Wash had taken her to the back of the crowd and insisted that they dance to it. He was a horrible dancer. So was she though, so it didn't rightly matter. He could still lead and he could still keep time, but not time with the music, time that was all his own coming from somewhere else.

Maybe he kept time with the stars.

Zoe didn't have to stand on her own two feet anymore.

Kissing Wash for the first time had been easy and had tasted of the sour chow mien he'd had for dinner and the cheap bottle of wine they'd shared. It felt real. It felt uncomplicated. It felt safe.

Safe because Wash didn't run outside the ship with a gun every time something happened. Safe because Wash didn't like to fight, couldn't really make an argument with his fists. Safe because Wash was content in the calm black of space instead of loud, dirty bars with loose women in every corner.

Safe because Wash wanted her to be happy. Because her happiness made him smile.

Things had been very simple after that. Dinner, card games that she usually won, talking long into the night when he needed to stay in the cockpit and keep an eye on things. They fought sometimes, which was good too, because Zoe couldn't stand perfection in relationships, made them feel rigid. Sometimes he tried to ask her about the war, what it was really like, what she'd done then. She didn't talk to him about it. It wasn't for him to know, he was too gentle for it, too steady. He was upset that she wouldn't tell him, thought she was saying he was weak, but that wasn't it at all. She wanted that pain to stay there; it had no place with them.

Mal had grumbled about them every moment he could spare, but it didn't bother her none. He knew better than to really say anything against it, or so she hoped. He knew she was happy with her pilot and his dinosaurs.

It still took her a long while to go to bed with him.

Zoe didn't jump into anything. She had to make sure it was right, really right, not just her being giddy and stupid over the fact that some boy liked her. She was an adult and she wanted to act like one, and he let her. When she'd followed him back to his bunk that night, he'd thought she had come along to make sure she got a kiss goodnight. He'd been a mite surprised.

They had gone slow, and they had taken time to poke and prod and tease, and they had _laughed_, oh hell, she'd never known it was possible to laugh so much while you were naked and kissing and tangled like that. But Wash was not one to do anything without laughter, he coaxed it out of you until you were in stitches because you _needed_ it and he knew. Bastard knew.

The laughter had also helped to cover how nervous he was, but Zoe saw it shine through more than a few times in the bewildered way he looked at her, in how tightly he closed his eyes when he kissed her.

Now neither of them had to be on two feet.

It was nice to come down from it, to talk lazily about silly things they had wanted as children and what they had thought they were going to be when they grew up. Life hadn't gone as planned for either of them.

They had fallen asleep fast, despite his protests, and she had slipped into a strange sleep…

_They were a long way from the base and she was sure that they weren't going to make the rendezvous in time. She had her hands pressed down over a wound that was spurting thick, hot blood violently against her palms, and deep down she knew they were going to lose this one, but she wasn't going to move her hands and admit it._

_Someone was screaming so close to her she thought she'd go deaf. He was raging with fever and madness and he shouldn't have been alive anymore. Zoe hoped someone would put him out of his misery._

"_Zoe!"_

_Someone was shouting for her. It was hard to hear above the feeling of the blood against her hands._

"_Zoe! We gotta move out! This ain't a place to hold from!"_

_It was Mal. He was making his way toward her, she could make out his outline against the flaring gunfire a mile or so behind._

"_This one's hurt bad, sir!" she told him, but her voice didn't sound like her own. It was high and pitchy._

_He kneeled down on the other side of the body and took a look. His hair was matted with dirt or blood or both, and one of his coat sleeves was ripped off cleaner than a husk off corn. When his gaze turned up to hers, she could see the worry etched in his eyes._

"_Zoe, he's already gone."_

_She blinked hard. "What?"_

_He reached out and gripped her shoulder tight. He thought she was going into shock. Maybe she was._

"_Zoe, we gotta move now – why're you cringin' like that?"_

_She hadn't noticed that she was making faces, but something felt wrong. Like a dull pounding through her whole body, only the Sarge just looked at where his hand had squeezed her shoulder and he shook his head in a way that looked terrified and irritated at the same time._

"_Zoe, you gotta get up with me now, I'm gonna find you a doctor."_

"_Sir?" Of course… some of the blood on her hands wasn't the dead man's it was – _

"_You been hit. Not too bad by the looks of it, we get you stitched up in time. Come on."_

_He went around behind her to help her up, but she shook her head. "Sir, I gotta stop the bleeding."_

_His voice was much softer, more cautious, not the voice of a commanding officer. "Zoe, I told you, he's gone. Nothin' we can do for him now 'cept pray."_

_Gone? He's dead. How had she forgotten that so quickly? He had just told her…_

_Mal pulled her to her feet, and she wanted to go back and help the dead man again, but he held her still. "Need to focus now," he told her. "Need you up and about soon because they told us they need us at Serenity Valley. We could win this, Zoe. I need you about your wits for me."_

_Zoe knew that she had followed him when it had happened. But this wasn't quite real this time around, and when Mal said Serenity Valley an alarm went off in her head that sounded of screaming ghosts and failure and a dead look on Mal's face that never went away…_

She hadn't realized she was shouting until Wash had woken her up.

"Hey Zoe? Zoe, calm down, hey, it's all right…"

She bolted up in bed, away from his touch. "I'm fine," she told him, cursing her voice for rattling on her.

He put a hand on her back, rubbing in circles, and damnit, didn't he know how to take a hint? She didn't want to be touched. "What were you dreaming about?"

"Nothin' for you to worry about," she said, inching over to get out of bed.

She was surprised when he grabbed her by the shoulder and held her still. That same shoulder.

"Don't do this, Zo."

She didn't look at him. She preferred to glare at the wall. It was much easier to be angry with. "Ain't your business."

"Ai-yah tyen-ah, yes it is!" he growled. "It is because I love you, and you won't tell me anything. There's this huge chunk of your life that's off-limits to me and you won't ever tell me why!"

"I don't go into it!" she yelled. If he wanted to piss her off, he was doing a good job, and they could fight about it for all she cared. "Sometimes I dream about it, but that's all. Nobody's business but mine."

"You probably dream about it because you never talk about it!" he argued.

"Oh, and you think that you're the person to confide in about it, huh? You think you can help me work through it or something?"

"Sometimes you just need someone to listen," he tried.

"Well, it's worked through!" she shouted, watching him cringe back into the pillows, trying not to see him in a uniform covered in blood and mud and bile. "It's done and I don't need to talk about how many people died, and how many I had to talk out of going crazy, and how many times we were beaten back an' shoved into holes we couldn't stand in or fight our way out of, because it's done, you understand?"

She turned away from him, but she didn't start crying. She hadn't cried since she was eight years old and she'd be damned if she'd start just because he had sad blue eyes and was frowning like he wanted to understand for all the 'verse.

So she sat there, dry-eyed and stiff, the sheet gathered around her waist and her legs dangling off the edge of the bed. She didn't know if she wanted to stay, but she couldn't move at the moment.

When the hands landed on her shoulders she felt weightless again, even though she couldn't smile yet.

"You have to tell me, Zoe. I'm not just here to make jokes, you know."

She turned around and wrapped her arms around him because it was what she needed to do. She buried her nose in his neck because it was right.

"You said you loved me," she realized.

He laughed just a little. "Yeah. I had wanted to pick a time that was maybe a little less full of pain and bad connotations, but you don't make it easy for a guy."

She could smile now.

Pulling back, she raised a hand and brushed his bottom lip with her thumb. "Good thing I love a guy who can take it, then."

His eyes went wide the way they did when he played with his dinosaurs.

No, the way they did when he saw the stars move.

And when he kissed her and playfully flipped her back down onto the mattress, it was alarmingly easy to let go and just be there. All the fight went out of her. She could relax into his laugh and his funny voices and his mild touch.

She knew that the nightmares were gone for good.

She woke up before him and got out of bed, dressing and splashing her face with water to feel awake. They were going planetside today and she had to be ready early to talk with the Captain. She found a pencil and a bit of scrap paper on one of the shelves in the room. On it she wrote:

_Meet me after you set her down, round lunchtime. Take me dancing again._

She left the note on the pillow next to his head, unsigned. She wished she could think of something more to write, something to let him know how much she…. Nothing was adaptable into words, none that she could express right at least.

She climbed up the ladder and closed the door behind her, pretending that she wasn't counting the minutes until she would see him again.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed! 


End file.
